jjjalljs

@jjjalljs@ttrpg.network

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Spotify 30 minutes of uninterrupted... Just kidding⁩ ⁨⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Spotify kind of sucks. I’ve been buying music from the musicians (mostly via Bandcamp) for years. Buying one album a month for like $8 means is cheaper than a subscription, and I now have a huge library of music.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When society completely transitions to cash-less, what happens when the power goes down? End of the world?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I guess riots break out all around the world?

  I feel like this idea that people are just going to riot and do mass violence is some right wing fear.

  Most people, most of the time, are pretty social cooperative creatures.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It Was Just a Rumor on Facebook. Then a Militia Showed Up. Residents of Oakdale, CA have abandoned traditional media outlets for a mishmash of online sources. Now they’re often unsure what to trust⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Capitalism remains a root problem.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Players Have Too Many Options to Spend $80 on a Video Game⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think I’ve ever bought a microtransaction or cosmetic. I’m doing my part!

  *Ok, i think I paid like $5 into warframe after 200 hours, and I used some fake money from google surveys on pokemon go, so I’m not entirely without sin.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Players Have Too Many Options to Spend $80 on a Video Game⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  But it still spooked Wall Street, as parent company Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.’s shares plummeted as much as 10% following the news.

  I think our economy might be predicated entirely on stupid.

  Also, $80 is a lot when typical people’s buying power is decreasing. I think like half of americans can’t tank a $500 surprise bill, and they want people to blow nearly 20% of that on a video game? Fuck off, capitalists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Netflix's CEO says movie theaters are old news. Director Rian Johnson says his next movie belongs there anyway.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Living somewhere where you need to drive is a whole other set of problems.

  I’ve enjoyed seeing movies at alamo drafthouse and similar. It’s okay if you don’t. But I stand by my original claim that more people would go if they had more money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Netflix's CEO says movie theaters are old news. Director Rian Johnson says his next movie belongs there anyway.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I did say “more people” not “all people”.

  Also, go to better theaters. Alamo Drafthouse (I think they settled their union busting problem) for example will kick people out for being disruptive, and has pretty good food delivered to you at your seat.

  Also there’s a pretty big gulf between “Let’s spend $60 for dinner and a movie” and “let’s spend $1600 for a home theater setup”

  People are social creatures, and many people enjoy watching something with a crowd.

  Me, I prefer watching at home so I can be comfortable and piss at my leisure. But every so often as a change of pace I’d go see it in a theater.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Netflix's CEO says movie theaters are old news. Director Rian Johnson says his next movie belongs there anyway.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m confident more people would see films in theater if they had jobs that paid better and worked them fewer hours. My friend with a full time office job and bartending gig at night trying to make rent isn’t spending a lot of time and money on theaters.

  It’s like that meme with the dog saying “no take ball, only throw”. The rich don’t want to pay us any money, but they want us to spend a lot of money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft is raising prices on Xbox consoles, controllers, and games worldwide⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Renting games and music seems like a bad idea to me, but I am in the minority. Buy a new album once a month for $8, after a year I have 12 albums. Pay that to spotify and I have nothing.

  Gamepass is priced more aggressively at $12/mo, but I assume it’s a loss so they can eventually raise prices. Even so, if I buy a new somewhat discounted game for $36 every three months, after a year I have four games. With gamepass, I’m pretty sure I end up with nothing.

  But I don’t think humans are known for long term thinking.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Recommendations for "girly" games?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Magical Diary is a fun little game about being a teenage girl that goes to wizard school. There’s 2 but I only played one: …steampowered.com/…/Magical_Diary_Horse_Hall/

  My time at Portia and my time at Sand Rock are pretty chill. They’re kind of like Stardew but 3d, and I liked them more. It has some fighting but it’s very PG cartoon-ish. It has a major mechanic where you just hang out with the NPCs, or go on dates with them. The second game, sand rock, is better but they’re both good: store.steampowered.com/…/My_Time_at_Sandrock/

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Paradox Interactive's return-to-office policy may be driving employees away from the studio⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  No one who mandates return to office should be in a position where they’re empowered to make those decisions.

  Labor needs to organize and say no

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do office workers actually do?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Software engineer.

  Morning meeting that’s supposed to just be “what you did yesterday, what you’ll do today, and if you need help”. People fuck that up and go off on tangents. What should be a ten minute meeting takes 30.

  Product owners at some point told you what the features to work on this month will be. For example, we need to add the ability for some reasons to bulk delete appointments.

  Chat with product and other engineers about what that entails. Product probably won’t give complete, clear, requirements so you need to pull it out of them. (Hard delete or soft delete? Do you need an audit log? Are you sure with no take-backs you don’t need an undo? Do you want to notify anyone when it’s deleted? One email per request or per event? Do you have designs for that email? No? Of course not. And what do you want the UI to look like? If I “just put a button somewhere” we both know you won’t like it. Give me details or that blank check in writing.)

  At some point sit down and make code changes to do the thing. Change the backend server code to accept your new request. Write automated tests. Change the frontend to make the request. Write more tests. Manually bang on it. Probably realize some requirements were missed (you guys know there’s a permissions system, right? I hooked this up to the existing can-delete permission. What do you mean CS doesn’t use permissions? You made them all superusers??)

  Manually bang on it a little. Deploy it to dev or some non-production environment. Have product and other stakeholders look at it and sign off. Probably get feedback and either implement it, or convince them to do it “later” (or: never, because they’ll forget and it’s not actually important).

  Get code approval from other engineers. Make changes as needed.

  Merge and deploy. Verify in production.

  Meanwhile, do code reviews for other people’s work. Context switch. Feels bad. Other guy is working on a progress report tool that’s in a whole other part of the code, so every time you look at it it’s a shifting of brain gears.

  Also look at dependabot for libraries that need updating. Read release notes. Make changes if needed. Test. Pray.

  Also periodic meetings to go over work in the backlog. A meeting to discuss how the team is doing that usually doesn’t produce results, but can be a vent session.

  I imagine from the product owner it’s something like:

  Get a mess of contradictory ideas from leadership. Try to figure out what they actually want and in what order. Manage their emotions because they have all the power and don’t like being told no or otherwise feeling bad.

  Talk to customers and other users. Try to figure out what they want. They say things like “make it go faster” or “can you make the map bigger?”. There’s no map on the website.

  Talk to engineering. They ask so many questions. Why can’t they just do the thing? They’re always going on about stuff that doesn’t seem important (like security and permissions and maintainability). This needs to go out Friday because the CEO wants it out.

  Write tickets (a short document describing work to be done). People don’t read them. Or maybe don’t finish writing them, and leave a vague “as a user I want to be notified about changes to my project”, without specifying any details. (Notified how, Ryan??)

  I don’t know what else they do.

  Startups are a mess. Anyone who says they want to run the government like a startup should be banished from the land.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hollywood Is Cranking Out Original Movies. Audiences Aren’t Showing Up.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah this feels like another thing that’s downstream from low wages.

  Movies are a luxury. If most people are struggling to get by in debt, they’re less likely to splurge.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you use your blinker in a car?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t drive anymore because I live someplace with transit and sidewalks, but when I drove I always signalled turns. Low effort, high safety.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do people insist on not answering ALL the questions in an email or text message?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  People are kind of stupid and lazy, and if there’s no immediate benefit for doing something or punishment for skipping it, they’ll do whatever’s easiest. We’re all like this to some degree, in some contexts or other.

  It is a little funny to me that some people just don’t have professional standards. I would make a good faith effort to respond completely to a work email because that’s the job. But I don’t think that’s it for a lot of people.

  There’s a lot of ADHD and friends in the world, and a lot of it is untreated. They’re not skipping questions out of malice. They’re probably trying their best. Still failing, but trying. That counts for something.

  A lot of people also don’t read well. They won’t likely show up on a texty medium like this, but they’re out there. It may be uncomfortable and embarrassing for them to try to read your email, especially if the level of diction is high and the vocabulary extensive. Most people are emotionally kind of fragile, and won’t put up with that shame for very long. I think that’s why a lot of people want to hop on a call or have a meeting when it could’ve just been an email. They can talk fine, but communicating in written words is harder.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How likely is it that Trump will be the first President assassinated since Kennedy?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I thought you were exaggerating that he’s 91. Our government has too many ancient farts, maybe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How likely is it that Trump will be the first President assassinated since Kennedy?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Depends on how the assassination is done. If it’s a headshot on trump, Vance will likely be president. If someone flies an IED drone into the two of them and they both die in the explosion, that’s different.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you answer the question "What's new with you?" when nothing happens in your life?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Usually a brief “I just read/played/watched such-and-such”

  If they know it, we can chat about it. If they don’t, and they’re interested, we can chat about it. Otherwise, the conversation moves on and the social rite is concluded successfully.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨LinkedIn’s cofounder Reid Hoffman says seeking work-life balance is a red flag that you’re ‘not committed to winning’⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Fuck this guy. I say we guillotine him as an example to the others.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why dont more people live in smaller communities , appart from economic opportunity (WFH is making it possible if not prefferable too)⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I live in New York City and have no desire to move to the suburbs or countryside. It’s great here.

  • I can walk to most of my needs. Several grocery stores, pharmacies, a big park, bars, restaurants. I don’t need a car.
  • there’s a thriving music scene. I can go see live stuff of many genres every night if I want
  • a deep dating pool. Lots of people. Lots of queer people too, if that’s your jam.
  • I like there being people around. The empty streets of the suburbs feel spooky and hostile to me.
  • more people means it’s easier to get group activities going. Join a soccer team. Brass band. Bird watching group. Knitting community. There’s everything. Usually more than one, in case a particular group isn’t your vibe.
  • stuff is open later.

  Some of the things people imagine about cities aren’t really true

  • it’s not constant noise
  • I typically can’t hear my neighbors
  • people don’t typically interact with you on the street, but if you need help someone will usually step up
  • it’s not shoulder to shoulder constantly. People seem to imagine it’s always times Square on NYE, but it’s just not.

  While you’re not unseen like you might be in the countryside, no one really cares that they do see you.

  Some people want “more space” but I don’t really know what for. A one bedroom apartment is fine for me. What would I do with more rooms?

  If I had kids, I wouldn’t want to put them in the suburban hell cage like I had. Nothing to do. Can’t get anywhere on your own. Don’t like the few dozen kids in your school? Well that’s your whole pool of friendship options. I was always so jealous of the kids I knew that lived in the city. They could just get on the train and go to the beach, or go skating, or go to a punk show, or whatever. I had to beg my parents to drive me anywhere interesting, and usually they didn’t want to.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Movie theaters are trying everything to bring audiences back — from pickleball to cocktail bars⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think a lot of people are struggling economically, and movie theaters are kind of expensive. If labor had a bigger slice of the pie, more of them would probably spend it on movies.

  I used to go to a theater that served food and drink right to your seat, and enforced silence from the crowd. It was pretty good. But that’s also like $50 a go.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT is shifting rightwards politically⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If we were all in the room, we could strangle Sam Altman or whatever other capitalist dog was calling the shots.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TikTok ban loses momentum as fewer Americans view it as a security threat⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I kind of want to live in a world where people stop using tiktok because short form video like that seems bad for your brain.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a historical event, person or time period you'd like to see made into a series?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well… since a lot of people don’t read books, and our public education has kind of failed, maybe we could use television to teach people about politics.

  Maybe do The Jungle so people remember why regulation is important, and maybe even go the extra mile so they learn about organization.

  Something about how weekends were fought for in the us, maybe.

  Trust-busting, so people can remember that mega-corps aren’t your friend.

  On the other hand, some people sincerely think Homelander is the hero of The Boys, so maybe we’re doomed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do the Republicans feel about Project 2025 now?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah I realized admitting fault is kind of a power move. You can just be like “oh! I was wrong. Woops” and what might have been a like hour long argument about some unimportant minutia instead just wraps up. Nothing bad happens.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do the Republicans feel about Project 2025 now?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, you have to make them see you as a member of a shared in-group. That’s the most important thing to them (and many people, honestly. we’re all susceptible to tribalism and such)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why aren't there mass protests in the USA?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m going to guess

  • poor media coverage
  • media is explicitly hostile to protests and pro trump/right-wing-extremism
  • many people are living paycheck to paycheck + we have minimal labor protection
  • years of left-wing organizations being kneecapped (eg: the murder of fred hampton)

  A lot of people are angry but there’s not really much organization. As much as I would love someone to take 50,000 of their closest friends, march down to DC, and shoot every republican in the head, without years of organizing that’s just a fantasy. Unfortunately, the right wing has been doing years of organizing and it’s now bearing fruit for them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do the Republicans feel about Project 2025 now?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t know any republicans personally but I would not be surprised if, given a choice between admitting fault and feeling bad, or literally any other option including lying or violence, they won’t admit fault. If they weren’t emotionally stunted, they wouldn’t be conservatives.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Luigi Mangione, accused of US CEO murder, depicted in London mural⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  No one went “straight to murder”. There have been decades of struggle.

  You’re also describing the “boxes of liberty” thing. “To be used in order: soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨RFK Jr.’s Prescription for Bird Flu on Farms: Let It Spread⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Can RFK Jr please get bird flu? Just him.